MIGRAINE
Migraine is a prevalent neurological disorder. Labeled as the third most pervasive disease, it is also sixth most disabling disease in the whole world. It has the ability to drive a person crazy anytime and anywhere and won’t allow him to work or function normally.
The majority of patients experience it once or twice a month but you may not know that some people experience the pain of chronic migraines almost on a daily basis or at least 15-20 days a month. Only a sufferer would know the reverberation of the horrible pain it offers.
It is a complex brain network chaos that pulls the strings behind this horrendous pain.
WHAT IS MIGRAINE?
It is a complex brain network disorder producing recurrent episodes of headache with symptom-free intervals.
Moreover, all the migraines aren’t the same. You can have different symptoms from other people.
WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF MIGRAINE?
Migraine is broadly divided into two categories:
- Aura (also known as classical migraine)
Approximately 1 in 3 people have migraine with aura.
What is migraine with aura?
A type of migraine that gives a “warning sign” that is called aura before the onset of headache episode.
Some people get the episode every few days and for some people it comes once or twice a year.
The causes of migraine with aura are still unknown to the doctors and researchers.
What are the symptoms of migraine with aura?
The ‘aura’ or warning sign is generally a visual disturbance like, seeing flash lights or blind spots.
The aura can last from 5 minutes up to an hour. It depends on the severity of the episode.
It is not only limited to visual disturbance but one’s speech can also be affected by this.
Some general symptoms of aura include:
- Temporary blindness or seeing blind spots
- Seeing colored spots or zig-zag patterns
- Feeling dizzy
- Numbness
- Tingling sensation like pin-pricking sensation.
- Confused or disoriented
The episode of migraine with aura –
- It begins as a dull headache but soon grown into throbbing pain.
- The headache and visual disturbance get worse with physical activity.
- Nausea and vomiting
- Headache may last for about 4 hours and can extend up to 3 days in the extreme cases
.Migraine without Aura
Now this is the most common type among the other types of migraine.
In here, you do not get any warning signs and directly face the wrath of its episodic symptoms. Just like migraine with aura, the time slot for the attack is pretty much same for it; 4 hours to 3 days.
What are the episodic symptoms of migraine without aura?
- The headache usually catches one side of the head.
- The pain is throbbing in nature
- Pain worsens with any physical activity
- Nausea and vomiting
- Photophobia (Sensitivity to light)
- Phonophobia (Sensitivity to sound)
OTHER TYPES OF MIGRAINES
- Silent migraine – The one without headache. Though one could experience aura in this type of migraine.
- Hemiplegic migraine – As the name suggests, paralysis or weakness following numbness occurs for a short period in one side of the body during the episode.
- Abdominal migraine – There is not much research about this type but it typically shows symptoms associated with abdomen like abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting.
- Vestibular migraine
- Ophthalmic migraine – Also termed as retinal migraine. It is associated with short lived visual disturbances or vision loss in one eye. The dull ache origins from the back of the eye and extend up to the head region.
- Migraine with brainstem aura – This type of migraine is connected to the hormonal changes in the body. It is associated with the symptoms like confusion, dizziness, and loss of balance, etc.
- Menstrual migraine – This type of migraine is linked to the menstrual cycle of a women.